ILC OPENS Mike Taliaferro receives a long, standing ovation
from attendees at the opening session this morning of the
2004 International Leadership Conference. His message
stresses the courage to preach both grace and truth, a call to
forgive and heal, and to “dream again”. He calls on church
leaders to support DT, HOPE, and AIM, to train “a whole new
generation of men and women” in the ministry, to resume
planting new churches, and to financially support existing
mission churches.

from icocinfo.org

Dislike: HOPE
I asked HOPE some simple direct questions and never got an answer at all. Not a peep. I wasn’t mean and I wasn’t angry. Before the publishing of the 2003 form 990, I asked for the following information:

• How many non-board employees that are not officers will make over 50,000?
• What are the top five salaries of folks not officers and not on the board?
• Who are the board members and what are their salaries?

It was information that was going to be public. I think at least we could have gotten a “we don’t know”. As I discovered later, they really may not have had any way to answer these questions until they started their tax returns. But there was NO answer despite my minister’s repeated questions. Oh well.

Besides that the financial information of the World Sectors and HOPE Worldwide have NEVER been addressed in any forum. We focused all our energy on how we treated each other and minister salaries, but never went much higher up. I didn’t want to believe it, so I didn’t either for a long time. We have shaken up staff, world, national, regional and local governance, but nothing about the money. I can forgive Bob for getting angry at the last Leadership seminar in Dallas, but I won’t forget the demand for money, the doom-saying “we’re going to shut down in a month if giving doesn’t pick up”, nor the indignation that anyone would question HOPE. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Even if HOPE has reformed its money handling issues (and I believe that changes are being made), there are more avenues than HOPE to give to worldwide missions. A friend of mine here led a church in Asia and experienced first hand the kinds of financial abuses that occurred. Next weekend there is a conference right here in Nebraska that presents these options. If we do not explore these other options, we will never learn new and possibly better ways to acheive our goals. They cover many of the same topics, but even more in-depth ones that we never covered in missions conferences.

Ambivalent: DisciplesToday
As far as DT goes, I can support it, even if I don’t like it. It’s a personal preference thing for me because of how it reads. I never liked KNN videos, so I have no interest in DT videos. Like I said, though, it’s just me and nothing bad on Roger or any of the other folks that work for DT. My father, who is not a part of the ICC and never was, loves the videos and uses them in his Methodist church for his Adult Bible Study group.

Like: AIM
Like is not the same as overwhelmingly endorse. However, it’s a step in the right direction. It’s similar to an effort in Mexico by a brother named Arturo. Being an education person and working in a school district, I’m probably biased about any kind of school activity. However, the value of a good education cannot be underrated. I trust one of the main teachers there to be different because he has proven all over the world that his is willing to ‘think ouside the box’.

It is a different avenue than through the chain of command of the World Sector corporations, and for that reason, it should be commended on principle. I haven’t taken any classes from there, so I don’t feel totally right in discussing their content.

My minister is attending college at a evangelical university here in town and the benefits to the congregation here have been great. We’re currently going through a study of 2 Timothy that is truly unlike any series I have heard on the subject. It is inspiring, challenging, and affirming. I hope to have it on the website soon – the sound crew has mastered digital recording.

In any case, a good school can be a part of making some real change. AIM does have some of the same old faces, and that is a problem they will have to overcome. I figure it this way: they will not misteach Matt 6:33, Matt 28:18-20, Acts 11:26, or even Romans 16 (we are churches of christ).

Last thing
Pretty glad I didn’t go, at least reading about it allows me to get away from the cheering mob. In any case, you know, I’m not anti-evangelism. I’m anti-ICC-proselytizing. There are still lost people in the world and in the United States. God is speaking to them just like he speaks to me.

Planting churches is all well and good, but do we really know how to do that yet? We ignored all our problems before by focusing on the plantings. I pray we do not repeat the same mistake again. My church would like to plant another city, mainly because we have people driving an hour each way to get here. Besides that, it would be good to involve local churches in that effort. However, it may be a couple years before we can do that. Some of it is money, some of it is just that we need to get ourselves in order, first.

Interesting so far, I hope to hear more from the conference.